The field of the disclosure relates generally to merchant-based loyalty programs, and more particularly to determining a cardholder's loyalty identifier for a loyalty program based on the cardholder's payment card.
Many merchants offer loyalty programs, where the merchant monitors a consumer's transactions with the merchant and then provides the consumer with a reward based on those transactions. For example, a merchant may provide a coupon for $10 off goods and/or services after a customer has purchased over $100 of goods and/or services from that merchant, or a merchant may provide the consumer with a coupon for a free coffee when a consumer has conducted 10 transactions with the merchant. Many loyalty programs provide the consumer with a loyalty program membership card with a unique identifier. When the consumer makes a transaction with the merchant, the consumer shows his or her membership card and the unique identifier is associated with the transaction. The transactions associated with the consumer's unique identifier are aggregated and when a threshold is reached the merchant may give the consumer a reward. Some loyalty programs count dollars spent, other programs count the number of transactions or count points earned. Some other loyalty programs provide a discount on the amount paid for every transaction.
Some of the loyalty programs provide the consumer with a personalized membership card. Other loyalty programs provide the consumer with a membership card with a unique identifier and then require the consumer to register the card with the merchant, usually online on the merchant's website. To use these loyalty programs, the consumer must show the card at each transaction. This can be problematic when the consumer has loyalty program cards for multiple different merchants. In some loyalty programs, when the consumer doesn't have their card, the cashier may be able to look it up. However, this slows down the transaction process.